Salvaging Modern Material Discards for Meaningful Reuse | Susan Ross

As redevelopment of already built-up sites expands in North American cities, tearing down large modern buildings is also accelerating. In pursuit of circular economy and sustainable building ideals, traditional practices like deconstruction for salvage and reuse are being revived. However, a shift toward valuing existing buildings as material banks, as implied in the rise of “urban mining,” challenges established material heritage values. Attempts to salvage and reuse modern materials and assemblies raise specific issues, notably the perceived obsolescence of industrial materials and modern buildings and the complex and difficult values of hazardous or experimental elements. In some cases, reinventing modern materials with new uses in new places will expand or reframe heritage values while helping us learn how to address their challenges as objects of materials conservation. To evaluate current practices, this paper discusses selected examples from Ottawa’s postwar urban landscape, each of which illustrates the range of issues for alternatives to demolition. Specific opportunities for modern heritage include reorienting salvage efforts to the scale of the component and redefining materials reuse as a critique of modernist models of obsolescence and materials waste.

The Demolition of Modern Heritage

Given the massive quantities of waste generated from construction, renovation, and demolition (CRD) debris, materials reuse should be a bigger part of building conservation. This article considers this objective in the context of modern heritage, which is increasingly demolished in whole or in part. Although materials reuse should be more important in retrofit, adaptation, and other conservation work in existing buildings, the focus here is on the potential for reclaiming materials for future reuse from the demolition of modern heritage. It examines the benefits and impacts of concepts like “urban mining” and building deconstruction for the built legacy of the recent past.

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